my current milling machine (roland mdx40a) is not suited for metal ..it can cut it but its very slow and im afraid that im going to break the machine if i keep it up...we have a large demand for metal work so im looking for a low cost, small footprint solution for some spillover work that my mdx40a cant handle.
i dont need many bells and whistles, i just want a machine that can perhaps cut metal faster than my mdx40a but am unsure of the specs i should be looking for.
i came across a low cost build your own cnc mill from china, its a cnc3040..they advertise this machine as being suitable for metal(when i say metal i mean soft metals not steel)...but im not sure how the specs of this machine compare to that of the mdx40a from roland , im not sure exactly how much better this machine might be, if really better at all.
im thinking that since this machine is so cheap i can modify it or upgrade it to make it even better for metal work, like perhaps creating a shallow water bowl on the bed to keep metal that being cut submerged and cooled or even intergrating a real flowing watercooling system but in all honesty, im not even sure i need that,basically im curious if this machine will be any better at metal than my roland machine based on the stock specs alone.
aside from the low cost i actually like the idea of building it myself, this way i will get a feel of the construction and i think i will be better aware of how to fix it if i have problems in the future or will have more knowledge of perhaps modifying it to make it better suited for my specific use.
again, im sure there are better machine but for a metal cutting machine under 1000 dollars???
if there is such a machine maybe you could share that too..